it's the too huge world vaulting beneath us
by maddieclaybourne
Summary: her faces scrunches up, and something wet cascades down her cheek. her shaking fingers touch the wetness. it's a tear she realizes, and she doesn't know how to feel about it. she can't remember the last time she cried./ or the fallout of the aftermath when steve findsout just who his neighbor kate really is


_Author's Note: This is a companion piece to my first ever Steve/Sharon fic – **somethin's growin' out of this that we can't control (baby, i'm dyin')**._

**~*~it's the too huge world vaulting beneath us~*~**

_**it's a big girl world now/full of big girl things/and every day i wish i was small**_

"_**scratch" by kendall payne**_

"_Kate_." She can hear her – well, not _her name_ [the one on her birth certificate, anyway] – drop from his full pink lips, like a stone, heavy and the four letters [not six] sounding too much for him. Her stomach wrenches, twisting itself into knots she knows there's no hope to untangle. Her fingers curl in on her palms, digging into the skin, but not hard enough to draw blood; just enough to _feel_ something that doesn't have anything to do with _him_.

She knew better than to accept the mission from the Director in the first place. She should've trusted her instincts, politely declined with the grace of Katniss Everdeen bowing to President Snow and saying, "Thank you for your consideration."

But she didn't.

She accepted the mission, and instead of extracting herself [eventually] like she knew she should've, she stayed behind. Continuing as Kate Taylor, Steve Rogers' neighbor and art student at Empire University.

Weeks quickly turned into months and The Director telling her about The Winter Solider should've been the last straw. His identity was well hidden, his face covered by a mask – only his eyes were visible – and other than his metal arm he had no discernible markings. But once Romanoff deducted his fighting style was the same as the trainers at 'Red Room' who had turned her into what she was – a master assassin – **S.H.I.E.L.D. **wasable to run facial recognition on Red Room's known associates, trainees and most importantly trainers; several had been taken into custody after Barton had infiltrated the infamous training school.

And there _he_ was; James Buchanan Barnes, staring back at her. She recognized his face – more devil-may-care in the faded photographs her Great Aunt Peggy kept of Captain America's original squad, The Howling Commandos – but his eyes were still the same shade of hunter green.

And that's when everything came crashing down.

Romanoff had her own history with Barnes, but she wasn't concerned about that.

She was concerned about _Steve_, and how he was on a collision course [not that she was supposed to know anything about it] with his best friend, who he believed was KIA and like everyone else from his past [including her Great Aunt Peggy] was either old or dead.

She couldn't let him hear the truth about James from the Director or Romanoff or Sam. He had to hear it from her.

So with a gun strapped to her thigh, underneath the skirt she wore, she knocked on his apartment's door, and after that everything went to hell.

* * *

"AGENT THIRTEEN! YOU DAMN WELL BETTER BE LISTENING TO ME RIGHT NOW."

Suddenly Sharon was brought back to reality. Blinking she could feel _more_ than the dull ache inside her heart. She was aware of the throbbing of her ankle [twisted, maybe broken], her ribs being tender, her hair – no longer glossy and curly – but dried with sweat and blood – hers and... She swallowed, remembering Steve cutting himself on the broken glass that covered his apartment's wood floor to protect her.

Until he realized – his eyes wide with confusion – she didn't need protecting.

Then his eyes shrunk, they were narrowed and glaring; confusion reigning amongst the once crystalline blue that had turned into stormy grey.

"_Who are you?"_

"You said something about me being benched, Director."

"You're damn right I did. I expected better from you, as one of the best and the brightest that has come through **S.H.I.E.L.D.'s **training program in a long damn time, I expected better from _you_." Each word sounded like punctuation was coming after it, and not long ago, Sharon would have been ashamed, but right now she could only think of Steve.

Her Great Aunt Peggy would be disappointed in her. As a woman who was blazing trails in the armed forces and the agencies that were precursors to **S.H.I.E.L.D. **and the CIA, she would be appalled to know that her great niece – determined to do nothing but follow in her footsteps – wasn't mourning the impending loss of her career, but a man.

She tried to sigh, but the sound she made was a hiss, her ribs still tender and most likely the skin of her stomach turning a grotesque shade of blue and yellow as she sat across from the Director.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Agent Thirteen?"

"That I failed the mission you gave me."

"That's it? That is _all_ you have to say for yourself?"

"I won't apologize. If you're looking for an apology, I can't give you one. I was irresponsible and reckless and completely disregarded the objective of my mission, I failed and I'll admit that, but if you want me to be sorry, that's something I can't do. Because I'm not."

"You're benched until further notice, Agent Thirteen. Once Lieutenant Hill, Agent Sitwell and myself have reviewed your actions on this mission, The Council will determine whether or not you can continue on with **S.H.I.E.L.D.** until then, you are not allowed on the premises, are not permitted to access any files or contact with anyone inside the agency. Are we clear?"

"Crystal."

"You're dismissed."

* * *

When Sharon leaves the Director's office her head is held high, chin tilted defiantly and her shoulders are ramrod straight. Just because she's being benched and has lost the most important person to her since her Great Aunt, doesn't mean she's going to fall apart.

At least that's what she tells herself.

Then the elevator doors open, and of course, _Steve_ is right there. He looks too good to be real. His hair neatly pushed away from his startling blue eyes, skin clear of any bruising, white t-shirt hugging the broadness of his well-built upper body perfectly, his jeans without tears or rips, and brown leather jacket thrown over his shoulder.

His eyes regard her with circumspection, slightly narrowed and his full lips twist into a straight line, his face neutral.

Her stomach drops to her feet. Just hours before he was looking at her with open eyes, and now... She takes in a shaky breath and says, her voice somehow making it past the lump that's suddenly appeared in her throat, "I can wait."

"It's fine K..." He shakes his head, stopping himself. "_Agent Thirteen_."

The hollowness, the formality that colors his tone makes her feel like she's crawling over broken glass as she steps onto the elevator. With each step, there's a pang of pain; searing her skin, twisting and churning, making every breath feel like a labor and every move like she's trudging through a foot of snow.

She can't keep her eyes off of him. She knows she should, that looking at him should be the last thing she wants to do, but she can't help herself. His strong profile; the handsome cut of his dimpled chin, the chiseled cheekbones, strong bridge of his nose, it's too damn much.

Her faces scrunches up, and something wet cascades down her cheek. Her shaking fingers touch the wetness. It's _a tear_ she realizes, and she doesn't know how to feel about it.

She can't remember the last time she cried.

Silent sobs wrack her body, and she wishes she could disappear into the floor of the elevator, because how humiliating is _this_? Crying over the man who's less than a foot away and won't do anything to stop your tears because they're your own damn fault, anyway.

_Pathetic._

She, somehow, ended up in the back corner of the elevator and was now on the floor; the cool steel pressing against her back.

And then she remembers; looking at Steve through her bleary eyes, the last time she cried was when she buried her Great Aunt Peggy.

She also remembers desperately wanting to be held by Captain America, to have his voice – sure and steady – whisper in her ear that everything would be all right, that Peggy was proud of her, that she would succeed in following in her footsteps, and that he would make sure of it.

"Steve?" She calls, throat raw and voice barely above a whisper.

* * *

She holds her breath, counting the seconds until he turns, slowly, to face her. His handsome face his blank, his eyes neutral and her chest feels tight, like there's a weight pinning her to the ground; crushing her windpipe, squeezing the breath out of her, and it just _hurts_.

It's too early to ask him, to early to _even think_ of asking him, but she can't help herself.

She's never been this desperate before. Not even during missions that suddenly went FUBAR.

She's also never been in love before.

"Do you think you could ever forgive me?" It comes out in one long-winded, rushed breath.

She knows the answer that's coming. The alternative – that someday he might – is too far fetched, too heady a thought to even entertain.

His eyes flicker over every inch of her face, and her stomach twists; not from pain or aches, but from remembering the last time his eyes did that, took in her face's every inch. It was the first time they had... _made love_, she corrected instantly, remembering the warm butterscotch of his tone as he whispered the words in her ear, telling her, breathless and lustful about how he wanted to make love to her.

After he had pulled back, eyes a darker shade of blue, and they took in every inch of her face, making sure that she wanted the same thing. When he was sure, he took his time in stripping her from her leggings and drop shoulder flowing top, gently kissing the exposed skin of her collarbones; burying his face amongst her waves of hair, inhaling her smell before sweeping her up into his powerful frame, not caring that they were on the floor.

"I..." He starts, fingers pushing through his hair and she bites her lip, remembering how her own scrubbed through the golden locks as his thick hips had pressed wantonly into her own before he finally sheathed himself inside of her.

"Please." She didn't want to beg or plead, but she couldn't stop the word from slipping off of her lips.

"I don't know." He answered honestly, the words sounding heavy in his mouth, like he was struggling to push them out.

"Fair enough." She responded diplomatically as she stood up after the elevator dinged.

"Agent... Sharon," Her heart leaps into her throat at the sound of her name – _Sharon_, not Kate – leaving the pink of his full lips, even though she knows it shouldn't. That it doesn't mean he'll ever forgive her. It just means he knows who she _really_ is, and honestly, it's a reminder that she spent months deceiving him, getting close to him, befriending him and then turning that friendship into something more, all the while knowing it couldn't last.

"Maybe someday." He says, lips quirking sadly.

Those two words stay with her during the long cab ride back to Brooklyn, where she spends the rest of the night packing up _Kate's_ life.


End file.
